content:en_us:6_d_raid_1_-_mirroring

RAID 1 - Mirroring

Preparing the Hardware

For software RAID 1, you need two hard disks. Since the RAID partitions on both the hard disks must be of equal size, it is a good idea to use two hard disks with (roughly) the same storage capacity.

Choose 'Create custom layout' at the menu in Disk Druid. Once you are in the Partitioning tool you will be able to navigate and change the drive partitions.

In our example, we are using two SATA disks on two different disk controllers. These hard disks are detected in Linux as:

  • /dev/sda
  • /dev/sdc

Deleting Partitions

Please refer to Deleting Partitions if you need assistance in removing existing partitions.

Creating the Swap Partition

After all the partitions are deleted, we can start our RAID configuration. First, we are going to start with the swap memory partitions. Putting swap memory on a software RAID partition is not recommended. For this reason, simply create swap partitions on both hard disks.

  • Tab to the New button and hit return
  • Tab down to File System Type and select swap
  • Tab to Allowable Drives and mark only sda and take the mark off of sdc.
  • Tab down to Size (MB) and type in the size of your RAM in megabytes (MB)
  • Tab down to OK and hit return.

Repeat the same process, but this time mark sdc as an allowable drive and take the mark off of sda.

Creating the RAID 1 Partitions

The boot partition (/boot) is where we are going to start with our RAID solution.

  • Tab to the New button and hit return
  • Tab down to File System type and select software RAID
  • Tab to Allowable Drives and mark only sda and take the mark off of all the other drives.
  • Tab down to Size (MB) and type in 100
  • Leave the mark on 'Fixed Size'
  • Tab down to OK and hit return.

Repeat the same process, but this time mark sdc as an allowable drive and take the mark off of all the other drives. Now that we have two identical 100 MB partitions on both disks, we can create the software RAID disk:

  • Tab to the RAID button and hit return
  • Type in /boot in the Mount Point field
  • Tab to RAID Level and select RAID1
  • Tab to RAID Members and make sure the two partitions created earlier are selected

This example creates the /boot partition. Go through the same process for the root partition (/) and optionally any other partition that you want to create (/home, /var, etc.).

Configuring the Boot Loader

Once completed, click OK and continue through the boot loader installation process. Please refer to Boot Loader document for if you require help with this step.

content/en_us/6_d_raid_1_-_mirroring.txt · Last modified: 2015/08/25 13:23 (external edit)